


Devil Got In

by Frellywellies



Category: Mercy Street (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-02
Updated: 2016-03-02
Packaged: 2018-05-24 09:43:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,030
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6149500
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Frellywellies/pseuds/Frellywellies
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tumblr Anon requested a jealous-Jed drabble. </p>
<p>A particularly solicitous patient sows seeds of discomfort in the good doctor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Devil Got In

Jed did not know if it was a skill that she’d had before arriving at Mansion House or if she had honed it on the job, as it were, but it was indisputable that Mary Phinney was very proficient when it came to deflecting male attention. 

 

She had plenty of opportunities to practice on the ward as well. Some of the wounded men were out of their mind with pain, others were unaccustomed to women moving amongst them. A few were simply scoundrels. Whatever their situation, Mary dealt with each of them with aplomb. 

Jed had seen her slap hands away from her body as easily as one might banish a fly in summertime. He had seen her kindliest expression turn instantly to one of blood-chilling sternness upon hearing a lewd suggestion. Once, he had watched as a young man who could not have been more than 19 attempted to grab at her backside. She took the man’s wrist in a grip like iron and bent to talk softly to him. From certain angles, it might have looked as though she were only a gentle and stalwart nurse, whispering words of encouragement into a suffering boy’s ear. 

 

Jed saw the soldier’s expression when she arose, however. He looked fully horrified and much whiter than the sheet underneath him. 

 

He had teased her a bit over that one. “You’ve put the fear of god into him, Mary. He won’t touch another woman until he turns 30.” She had just smiled her delicate little smile and went about her work again. 

 

He had therefore never felt the need to rush to her defense (nor, in fact, did he believe that would be possible, considering the alarming regularity of such encounters and his own busy schedule). He had not expected that another man might step in and offer his own protection. 

 

Mary was occupied with one of the beds, adjusting slightly the systems of pulleys that were keeping a young man from Michigan’s broken leg raised above the bed covers. Jed was watching. Well, ostensibly he was checking the dressing on a soldier with an amputated foot but it was his practice to observe Mary when she was available for observation. He liked to watch her work, the lightness and the deliberateness of her movements, the way her jaw set when she encountered a difficult task. How gentle, how soft she could make her hands when tending to the sick and injured.

 

He supposed that the boy in the bed must have been thinking what he was thinking--that the lighting coming in through the window made a kind of halo from her hair, that it outlined the shape of her in gold like something from a dream or an illusion that the eye created. A fata morgana, Jed believed it was called. 

 

So pre-occupied was he with Mary herself, in fact, that he barely noticed when the boy in the bed reached up to paw at her breast. 

 

Mary jolted but could not step back or else the entire apparatus she was adjusting would collapse, injuring the boy further. She opened her mouth to scold him but was interrupted by a voice from the next bed. 

 

“Hey!” the other man shouted, getting awkwardly to his feet and stumbling towards the Michigan boy. “You knock that off! Would you treat your sister so? Your mother?” 

 

The Michigan boy shrank back into the bed, having nothing to say for himself, apparently. Mary finished her work at the top of her bed and gracefully inserted herself between the two soldiers. 

 

“Apologize!” the other man bellowed and Mary rested a hand on his shoulder. 

 

“Captain Sparks,” she said, “return to your bed.” 

 

The man--Captain Sparks--allowed himself to be pushed backwards but still stabbed his index finger at the boy around Mary’s back. “You should ask her forgiveness, boy!

 

“Speaking of ‘shoulds,’” Mary said good-naturedly, “you should not be walking.” 

 

By this time, Jed had made his way over (the man with the wrapping wasn’t going anywhere. Certainly not on just one foot). “Miss Phinney, are you well?” he said, giving both men stern looks. The Michigan boy looked as though he wanted to sink through the bed and be absorbed entirely by the mattress. 

 

Captain Sparks had eyes only for Mary. “You cannot tolerate that sort of treatment, Nurse Mary,” he said, holding her hand in both of his, which Jed thought was really laying it on quite thick. 

 

“That is very kind of you to say,” she smiled. “But I will be fine. And you shall be fine as well, so long as you rest properly.” 

 

She extracted her hand from the captain’s grasp and turned to Jed. “I am well. All is well. Though there is a patient in the other room I would like you to see…”

 

For a moment, he assumed that this was an invented excuse to remove the pair of them but instead Mary led him over to a soldier who had broken several fingers on one hand. She wanted Jed to confirm that infection had set in, which he did quickly. And there was no more talk of the boy from Michigan, nor that gallant Captain Sparks. 

 

***

 

The next time Jed took notice of the man, Mary was sitting at his bedside with a book open but unregarded on her lap. She was laughing.  

 

It was that sound--rare and, like all rare things, precious--that attracted his attention. The captain was staring at her with undisguised adoration in his face. He had made her laugh and he was basking, now, in her lightness and her mirth. 

 

There was something in Jed, something undoubtedly petty and unmanful, that wanted to disrupt them in some way. Call Mary over for a fictional task or even knock something over to startle and disturb them. Instead, he let them be and went back to his rounds which were, after all, his job. 

 

He could not resist, though, commenting on the situation when he and Mary found themselves in the supply room (he searching for additional ether, her busily rolling additional bandages for the day ahead). “Captain Sparks seems much improved,” he offered in what he hoped was a neutral tone. 

 

“Yes,” Mary agreed. “His recovery is remarkable.” 

 

“So he should be leaving soon?” Jed heard his own voice as though from a distance. Why should he ask her this? Why should he care so much about her answer? 

 

Mary didn’t answer immediately. Her hands stilled for a moment and she regarded him thoughtfully. “That is more for you to say, Dr. Foster,” she said finally, putting a slight stress on the ‘doctor’. “But I would imagine so, yes.” 

 

“You will be...sorry, when he goes?” 

 

Mary looked up at him, startled. Her mouth opened but no sound came out and a small line appeared between her eyes. “I...I don’t know,” she managed finally. “I am certainly never sorry to see a man back in fighting shape.” 

 

She tilted her head at him, questioning, and Jed grabbed the bottle of ether he had located several moments before. “I must...go,” he mumbled, turning abruptly and heading out the door as though there were an ether-related emergency waiting just outside for him.  

 

***

Captain Sparks shared a home state with Mary and he regaled her with remembrances of places they both recalled from their childhoods. He no longer required daily nursing, he had no bandages to change or wounds to inspect. Yet Mary still made time for him, to inquire about his well-being and, occasionally, to sit with him. 

 

The captain, in turn, seemed to thrive on her attention. He looked for her in the face of every passing nurse and orderly, he tried to catch her eye when she was attending to others. He called for her all the time “Mary, Mary, Mary,” not even bothering with her title. 

 

She tolerated all of this, even indulged it when she had so easily dismissed similar behavior from other patients. Was it because he reminded her of her home? Of a time before the war? Of the boys she knew in her youth? Was it because she found his flattery appealing or his face handsome? 

 

As always, Jed could only wonder about the inner workings of Mary’s heart. 

 

One thing was certain, however: the captain was nearly mended and his Army had use for him once again. He was set to leave in just a day or two when Jed encountered them late one night after an amputation that had run long. 

 

The two of them seemed to occupy a rarefied space, bounded by the limits of Mary’s yellow lamp. She sat at his bedside while he leaned urgently into her, sobbing so hard it was as though he were in a fit while she delicately patted his back. 

 

She murmured something to him and Jed could not sift any words from her speech, only the low sound of her voice vibrating in her chest. Standing there, watching them, he felt an ache more profound than any physical ailment he’d ever experienced. 

 

He envied that man in the bed, despite his injuries, his sufferings, his imminent return to the front, despite every single thing about him, in fact. Because that man might call out her name and have her answer. He might beseech Mary for comfort and receive it. He could touch her-- _ he could touch her _ . 

 

All these things were barred to Jed and the absence had never felt quite so acute as now, looking at her tender, lamplit profile so impossibly far away from him. 

 

Captain Sparks pulled away from her and gave her a serious, impassioned look. Jed knew that look, having surely worn it himself a time or two. Sparks was sizing her up, deciding whether she would be amenable to a physical gesture of affection. Mary’s face was turned away from Jed so he could not read her expression. 

 

Her actions were clear, however, when Sparks leaned forward and attempted to kiss her. Mary turned her face aside and shook her head. She took his hands and pressed them firmly into the blanket, giving them a matronly pat for good measure. 

 

Jed realized that he had half-stepped towards them without ever realizing his feet were moving. 

 

Mary excused herself then, rising from his bedside and taking her lamp--and her light--across the ward with her. 

 

“Dr. Foster,” she said, sounding a bit startled to see him lurking there in the darkness. “Your surgery--”

 

“Took longer than anticipated,” Jed said briskly. “I was just headed upstairs, shall I escort you?” 

 

Mary smiled slightly and nodded at him. 

 

The two of them were silent on the journey up the staircase. He could feel Mary taking small glances at him wondering, undoubtedly, how much of her interaction with Captain Sparks he had seen. 

 

They reached Mary’s door first and paused. Mary toyed with the edge of her apron and would not look directly at him. “I hope you will not think that Captain Sparks is...a rake of some kind,” she said finally, breathlessly. “He is far from his home and suffering sorely. It is very easy, in extremity, to mistake kindness for...something else. But there is no malice in him. And I did not wish to add to his pain.” 

 

No, Mary would never wish to cause someone pain. 

 

Jed smiled at her. “I would certainly think no less of him for becoming enamoured of you,” he said. “In fact, it speaks to his good judgement.” How he wanted, in that moment, to reach for her hand. Only her hand. For now, it would suffice just to feel her fingers threaded through his own. But even that smallest point of contact would be inappropriate for a man with a wife, no matter how far away she might be--both physically and in his thoughts. 

 

She cracked her door, revealing the shadowy corner of her bed and the edge of her windowsill. The place where she slept and dreamed, another secret closed to him. She returned his smile. “You are kind,” she said. 

 

But he was not, not really. In his heart, he begrudged her the affections of another man, though he himself could never hope to make overtures to her. Should he really deny her whatever small blossomings of love she might be able to find in this horrible place? Even if it pained him constantly, like a wound that refused to heal clean? 

 

“Mary,” he said raggedly, putting his hand in the door just before she closed it. “If you...had some connection with the captain, you might...you might pursue it. It would not be the first time a man forged a relationship with someone who had cared for him…” 

 

For brief instant, rested her own hand on top of his. She did not pat it emphatically as she had with the captain, instead she removed it almost immediately, as though afraid of offending him. “I’ve had a husband, Dr. Foster,” she said gently. “I do not seek another. And the captain, while very well-intentioned is…” she looked at him steadily, her eyes at bright and pure as a lamp’s flame, “...not what I want.” 

 

He allowed her to shut her door then, to retreat to her space alone and engage in all the small intimacies of a woman preparing to sleep. How he longed to know her habits! He imagined her, sitting at the edge of her bed and patiently unbraiding her hair (how long was it? what was its color in the white glow of moonlight?) and brushing it through and through again until it floated around her like a cloud. Would she wash her face and her hands, sleep in flannels or cottons or--god help him--nothing at all? Did she prefer the window open to let in cool night air or would she prefer the close warmth of a shuttered bedroom? He wanted, he realized, to know every single thing there was to know about Mary Phinney. 

 

Instead, he had only his imaginings and her door, which was forever shut to him. 

 

***

 

Captain Sparks departed the next day. The soldiers generally did not bother overmuch with saying farewells--neither they nor the staff had the moments to spare. Mary herself was run ragged all morning and had no time for anyone not currently bleeding to death. 

 

Jed knew that the captain wanted to say his goodbyes to her but the best he could offer was to pass along any sentiments Sparks might have. The captain pondered this offer, thinking hard. “Tell her…” he said finally, “tell her what a fine woman she is, would you?” 

 

“Yes,” Jed said, shaking the man’s hand. “I will tell her.” 

 

“Too fine for this place,” Captain Sparks sighed, taking a last look around at the ward where he had spent the last six weeks. At this, Jed could only nod. 

 

When day had been washed away in blood and tears and sweat--saltwaters of all variety--Jed found Mary sitting on a small bench outside the ward. Her apron was streaked red and her hair was coming down in a hundred little wisps. Her eyes were open but she stared glassily forwards as though she were an enormous mannikin. 

 

He touched her shoulder and she jumped before looking at him and giving him a slow smile. “Asleep on my feet,” she said ruefully. “Sorry.” 

 

“No apologies required.” Jed settled himself next to her. It was very good to sit with her and be silent together. There was something deeply soothing in it. No wonder the captain had wanted her always at his bedside. 

 

“Your Captain Sparks left today.” 

 

Mary gave him a wry look. “ _ My _ Captain Sparks? I’ve taken ownership of him now?” 

 

“Oh, I am sure he would have liked nothing better.” 

 

Mary hefted a sigh that offered no insight into her state of mind. “He will be a credit to his regiment, I am sure.” 

 

“He did leave a message for you.” 

 

She turned expectantly towards him and Jed took her hands in his own. Mary watched this movement warily but allowed it. “He wanted me to tell you that you are a fine woman.” 

 

Jed could not say exactly why he did what he did next. When he was a boy and he had gotten into some manner of mischief, his mother used to tell him angrily that the devil had gotten into him. 

 

Perhaps the devil had gotten into him now. Or perhaps it was only Mary Phinney’s sad smile. 

 

He leaned forward and pressed a light kiss against her cheek. It was utterly chaste, a kiss he might have given to a sister or a cousin. But Mary was neither of those things to him and, when they drew apart, there was that familiar thing between them, that weighty, unspoken thing that so regularly threatened to flare into life and consume everything it touched. 

 

“He left that for me?” she said softly. 

 

“I’ve been carrying it around with me all day,” Jed told her and she laughed, startling a passing Sister, which only made her laugh harder. The sound was a instantaneous balm to him, it was as though someone had lifted an enormous burden from him. He had been brooding so long on all the pieces of Mary that he could not have, Jed realized, that he had not paused to be grateful for the little of her that he  _ was _ allowed. 

 

He could sit with her and talk with her and hear her laughter and watch her at her work. It was not enough--not nearly enough--but it was more than the unfortunate Captain Sparks had now. Mary may well be too fine a woman for this place but she was here nonetheless, for as long as there were men to be saved and work to be done. They could be together, in their stunted way, for that time at least. 

  
And then, a thought he’d never had before and would never own to, but true all the same:  _ Dear God, I hope this war never ends.  _

**Author's Note:**

> H/T to MercuryGray for the running thread of people “giving” dudes to Mary


End file.
